Taxation on Reserve Vehicles.
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IT IS A common practice among owners of fleets, both large and small, to keep a standby vehicle . or two. With a concern such as the London General Omnibt% Co., the Maidstone and District Services, the Trent Motor Traction Co., the liristol Tramways and Wagon Co., the Scottish Motor Traction Co., and others, the number of reserve vehicles runs always into big figures. H.itherto, on . these standby vehicles no heavy tax was paid, unless they were actually in service or running on the roads, in which ease the amount of taxation was propor tionate to the petrol, consumed or the mileage covered. Under the Finance Act of 1920, every vehicle has to he separately liciensed for a period of not less than three months, and, thus; the owner of a fleet of four vehicles, one of which is held always in reserve, the other three filling all his transport requirements, must be 'mticted'in an additional tax amounting to an increase of 33* per cent. per annum. If they are three tanners, the addition to his annual standing charges is £25; if they are 32-seater motor coaches the additional tax arising but of the mere " keeping " . and nob " using " the reserve coach will be no less ' than £60 per year. This additional charge is., in such cases, a real imposition—one of those matters which the pressure of public protest must, ultimately, cause to be remedied. Hence the Sooner the obvious injustice is removed the better.
The provision of quarterly licences does not meet the case, because the reserve vehicle, being liable to be called into service at any moment, will, in most eases, be used many times in. the year without, let it be observed, increasing the number of vehicles which the owner habitually has in service. In the ca-se of the bus companies, the position may be less difficult, because their reserves take the form rather of components than of complete vehicles and, where the fleet is large enough and facilities exist . for rapidly changing and replacing an engine, gearbox, axle, or springs, the best way is to keep no reserve vehicles in a, complete form, but merely' reservecomponents upon which no tax can he demanded.
Is there any way by which relief can be given to the small fleet owner who never has the whole of his.
fleet upon the road ? If there is a sound and practical • proposal which shall meet the requirements . of the owner of the vehicles and shall prevent the revenue from being defrauded, it should be placed before the Minister of Transport for consideration.
The Unclaimable Old Age Rebate.
OWNERS OF commercial vehicles having engines which were constructed prior to January 1st, 1913, write us in considerable numbers asking if they are entitled to claim a rebate of 25 per cent. upon the licence fee because of the age of the vehicle, and those who have discoVered that they cannot do So complain. of the difference in treatment accorded to the owner of a private vehicle so situated and the owner of an old type goods or hackney vehicle. The circumstances are different, however, and do not seem to call for protest to the Ministry of Transport. '
• Prior to the adopteion by the Treasury, for the purposes of taxation, of the R.A.C. method of ascertaining horse-power, a number of engines were constructed Which just overlapped the border lines of the taxation categories and thus, for a fractional extra horse-poWer, were taxed on a materially higher basis. After many years (and, as we heard it said, it needed a great European war to bring about the reform!) this matter has been rectified by the allowance of a rebate on cars built before January 1st, 1913. Cortunercial vehicles and hackney vehicles, however, are not taxed on the horse-power of their engines, but, in the one case, upon their unladen weight and, in the other; upon, their seating capacity, so that the inefficiency of a particular engine cannot be adduced as a reason for the granting of a rebate.
Information That Should be Filed and Stored.
THIS IS POINTED at the garage proprietor, the local repairer and at the fleet owner—also at their managers and foremen, and it concerns the series of articles now appearing in The Commercial Motor under the title of "Hints on Overhauling.'.' .
We are taking a great deal of trouble in securing the information which is given in those articles and in the manner of its presentation, but we are taking much further trouble. to see that the information thus made available shall continue to he available and not become lost in the dini and distant past through the medium of the waste paper basket, and alternatively be buried in the bound volumel We are endeavouring to ensure that, on the very day that an XYZ fourstonner is brought to a repairer, with the request to know whether the necessary repair or overhaul can be done by him, or whether the vehicle must be . despatched to the makers, the repairer can turn to hie bookshelves and, in a, few moments, have ready to hand a complete guide to the beet and shortest way to carry out the job. Incidentally, besides this, we want. to save Ourselves the trouble of looking up and .referring our inquirer to the issue of The Commercial Motor in which the much-needed (and suddenly become invaluable) information had appeared, adding our eternal regret that the issue has, long ago, been out of print, 'and that, unless the repairer sends someone to read the article in the volume which rests in our bookcase, we do not know how he is again to obtain the information he has so recklessly thrown away !
So we refer our readers addressed in the first lines of this note to the articlo by "Vim," himself a noted garage proprietor, on the proper method of treating the articles. We are now ready with our own scheme, Which is to provide, free of cost, a binding cover to receive reprints of the articles. The reprints will be prepared on heavy paper and be perforated in the margin to standard, dimension. These reprints will be sent post free for sixpence per copy and shourd be placed in the cover and indexed. The growing volume of information, added. to weak by week, will be of very great value.
Some of the manufacturers are supplementing ous efforts. They are buying a few hundred or a few thousand reprints and distributing themselves to their own agents and to the users of their vehicles. If the suggestion made by " Vim " of pasting on cards and varnishing be carried out, the articles will have the permanence which they def3erve.
We Were talking to the manager of one of the largest fleets of vehicles in this country the other day andehe said "Those articleson overhauling constitute some of the most useful material that has ever appeared in print,. I feel that I am going to Save £20 per chassis on every overhaul I carry out, and I am going to get my vehicles quicker back on to the road." He then asked to be allowed to place an order for reprints that he could send regularly to every one of his garages. Such testimony was accepted as a great compliment. • . Will our readers now let our publishing department have their requests for binding covers and for a weekly supply of reprints?
Why Road Transport in Present Circumstances Must Advance.
WHILE IT IS impossible to ignore the many disquieting factors that are, at present, tending to retard the natural development of road transport, no benefit is to be obtained by taking a uniformly pessimistic view of the situation. We must remember that, in the long run, the extent of the use of vehicles is bound to exert a big, influence upon the cost of their manufacture. If we look forward to the employment of immense numbers of commercial motor vehicles in all parts of the world, we can look forward, also, with fair certainty to a time when the scale of manufacture will be so large, and big regular business will be so certain, that production will be able to proceed on the soundest and most economical lines. • Now, ' in this connection, we ought to recognize that many of the circumstances which are, at present, at the bottom of our difficulties are of such a kindas to compel the extended 'use of motor vehicles. The general demand for a higher standard of living can only be satisfied permanently if the output of the individual is so far increased that he is enabled to earn really substantial wages, after the payment of which a margin of profit must be left to those who finance his labour and take the speculative risks associated with manufacture or business of all kinds. Thus, in the conduct of transport, no one can con c4 tinue to afford to pay men well unless the output of those men justifies the payment. The output of the transport worker is measured by the number of tons that he conveys and the number of miles over which he conveys them. His output capacity in ton miles can obviously be. much increased if he is given a vehicle the motive power of which does not tire and the speed capacity of which is much greater than that of the horsed cart. In other words, if road transport workers are to reach and maintain a good standard of living, the general use of motor vehicles is one of the essential preliminaries. Moreover, these vehicles must not ' be used wastefully, and, in this connection, a cheering sign is the tendency towards organization exemplified by the formation and linking up of road transport clearing houses. Generally speaking, however, road transport is like any other industry, inasmuch as its progress towards efficiency is more or less directly dependent upon the horse-power placed at the disposal of the individual worker.
If we look at the same subject from another angle, it is apparent that, if an employer has to pay his men more, he-must, obviously, devise some meats of getting more work done by them. In the sphere of road transport, the motor vehicle providet the means, and, therefore, it must necessarily be adopted in largely increasing numbers.
Brighter Days for Users and Makers.
RECOGNIZING that the quantity of output of vehicles must affect their, price, it is evident that we must concern ourselves also with the probability of rapid development of markets in other countries. In this connection there are two factors to be taken into account. For one thing, -the present wave of unemployment does not affect Great Britain alone. Elsewhere, as here Governments may find it necessary to devise big schemes of public' utility as a means of absorbing labour for the time being. Elsewhere, 'as here, it is probable that, in any plans of the kind, road improvements will figure prominently. Thus, the present very 'regrettable state of affairs may quite possibly tend to bring about accelerated development of the road system. As the efficiency, of motor transport depends primarily on the quality and adequacy of the available roads, it follows that anything which is done to improve the road system must lead to an increased demand for motor vehicles in the fairly near future. The ether point is that,.in many lands in which labour has, in the past, been extremely cheap, the position is. changing with great rapidity. This applies particularly, perhaps, to the East and to countries dependent largely upon Eastern, labour. Proportionately the cost of this labour has gone up even more than at, home. There are some Eastern races that are constitutionally lazy. Others make exCellent transport workers and, so long as they were prepared to sell their labour at a nominal price, there existed only very trifling openings for motor services where the labour of such races was available. Now they have learnt to appreciate their own value? and the consequerice is that the openings for the introduction of labour-saving machinery are widening considerably. The changed position affects not only the transport of general goods and the carriage of passengers over short distances, but perhaps even more the services which have to be rendered by up-to-date municipalities. We may expect to see a big world demand growing up for municipal motor vehicles for road sweeping and watering, the collection of refuse, and so on. Altogether, then, while the present may be somewhat dark, there are distinct signs of brighter days in the future both for users and for manufacturers of commercial motor vehicles.